Since there's so little going on in the hockey world worthy of note - nobody seems terribly interested in the Van Hellmond 'controversy' - now seems the perfect time to discuss the death of Sir Robin of Camelot.
Sir Robin was thrown into the Gorge of Eternal Peril from the Bridge of Death for what many believe to be a manifestly unfair reason. The tyrannical Bridgekeeper was obviously fond of asking trick questions, a habit which Arthur would soon break him of - permanently. Like the now-infamous "swallow question" that led to the Bridgekeeper's demise, the Assyrian question that was Sir Robin's doom had many answers - or none, depending on your point of view. Unfortunately for Robin, he wasn't a king, and thus didn't need to know these things. Otherwise, he might have survived the query that instead spelled his death:
"What is the capital of Assyria?"
The correct answer for Sir Robin would have depended on his goal. Had he simply wanted to cross the bridge, he might have said "there isn't one" and gone on. But if he wanted to play the hero and turn the tables on the Bridgekeeper as Arthur would only moments later, he might have replied, "During which era of the Assyrian Empire?" and hoped to watch the Bridgekeeper scratch his head in bafflement before being cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril.
What the Bridgekeeper may or may not have known is that the Assyrian Empire had four different capitals during its existence. From the 14th century BC until the mid 8th century BC, the capital was Ashur. Calah replaced it, for over a hundred years, and then in 710 BC Dur Sharrukin was briefly made capital before Nineveh took the title. Nineveh remained the capital until its destruction in 612 BC by the Babylonian army, which leveled the city to the ground and eradicated almost all traces of its existence. Assyria itself may or may not have taken a few more years to completely disappear, but within the next century, Assyria was obliterated from the planet as its other major cities were razed as thoroughly as Nineveh had been. By the time the Bridgekeeper asked his question of Sir Robin, Assyria had been history for hundreds of years. Even if the presumed year of the Quest (787 AD) is off by decades upon decades, it's obvious that the search for the grail could not have taken place before Christ's time, and Assyria was destroyed centuries before Christ was born.
But was it truly an unfair question? To a modern-day viewer, perhaps it seems overly difficult. But not when viewed as a test of worthiness. Not when put in the perspective of the Quest. For what was the Bridgekeeper's function but to test the merit of those in pursuit of the Holy Grail? Certainly he had very little need to test Sir Lancelot, whose fame obviously preceded him even to the Gorge, but Robin remains a virtual unknown to this day, not even appearing in most accounts of the Quest. So the Bridgekeeper asked a question that a true Biblical scholar would know the answer to - for the fall of Nineveh, and thus the Assyrian empire, was prophecied in the Old Testament. Robin was not punished for not knowing general trivia; he was found unworthy of the Grail because of his lack of piety and ignorance of the Holy Book. Likewise, the Bridgekeeper himself was cast into the Gorge not merely for asking a question he wasn't wholly familiar with, but rather for having the temerity to put God's chosen leader of the Quest to the question at all.
So while all will remember Sir Robin - and his minstrels, who suffered an even more heinous death - with fondness, it is possible to recognize the necessity of his death. For thus the purity of the Quest was preserved.